Kildare GAA to move house..

Started by Dinny Breen, November 29, 2006, 08:31:08 AM

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Dinny Breen

The County Board and Clubs decided last night to move house.....

Here's last weeks report from the Kildare Nationalist..

QuoteA county board source has told the Kildare Nationalistthe template for the new county grounds. "It won't be a million miles away from the Swansea Stadium".

While plans are under wraps the Kildare Nationalist can reveal that the new stadium will have a capacity of 25,000 with seating for 5,000. The new development is not based on any stadium in Ireland and while the county development committee in charge of the proposals looked at a number of stadia across Britain and Europe, the Swansea stadium is closest to what the new Kildare GAA grounds will look like. It will be U-shaped and there will be a training pitch attached to the dressing rooms. The rooms will be very similar to the ones in Croke Park. At present the four changing rooms in St Conleth's Park are so small that Kildare teams use two of them for matches.

The Liberty stadium in Swansea is home to the Ospreys rugby team and Swansea City football team, and has a capacity of 20,000, fully seated. It took almost three years to complete the stadium in Swansea and cost £27 million. It is expected that the new stadium in Kildare will take two years to build.

The ambitious project is incorporated into the local development plan for Newbridge, with a ring road around the town expected to alleviate traffic problems. There will be provision for car parks within the ground.

County chairman Syl Merrins will make a presentation to the clubs on Tuesday next (28 November) in which he is expected to outline the design of a new 25,000 capacity stadium for Newbridge.

The new home of Kildare GAA will be built behind the Wyeth building on the Naas side of Newbridge. It is still not decided whether to present the clubs with one definite plan or to present the other options being considered by the county's development committee. They were due to meet again last night (Tuesday 21) to consider this as well as how much land the county will get on the new Greenfield site which is in excess of 25 acres. Negotiations are still taking place as to whether the county could secure more land.

Meanwhile the current grounds at St Conleth's Park are expected to fetch somewhere in the region of 25 million. There are between five and six acres in the current grounds and local estate agents believe that this area is worth up to 5 million an acre. However it is not expected that planning permission would be granted for a residential development, meaning that another shopping centre, or a 'Whitewater two might be built. 

Also link to the liberty Stadium in Swansea...

http://www.liberty-stadium.com/index.php
#newbridgeornowhere

lynchbhoy

good old st conleths park, so many enjoyable but unhappy memories !

I am only surprised that it took this long for Kildare to sell up and move house.

they will get a nice little lift for this
now they can afford to helicopter Mickey Harte down from Tyrone three times a week after the 2007 season (which could be Harte's last with the red hands)
..........

Bord na Mona man

A very nice new stadium by the looks of it, but is it more than what Kildare need?
Are they happy just to host Kildare league and qualifier matches + club games, or are they hoping to get extra games?
If there is 5,000 seats and the rest roofed terrace, then that should be fine.
However anything beyond that is probably overkill.

Still, it's good to see that the GAA's ability to purchase grounds and land back in the days when there wasn't too much spare cash, is reaping rewards.

Dinny Breen

QuoteAre they happy just to host Kildare league and qualifier matches + club games, or are they hoping to get extra games?

Personally I'm glad to see the back off it, worst dressing rooms ever and worst toilets of any ground bar tolka park that I have ever been in.

They are actually looking to maybe make it a commercially viable stadium and will look for their fair share of Leinster Championship Games and All-Ireland Qualifiers. Also they will be looking at the outdoor concert market. Kildare have been granted 26 acres from Kildare County Council at zero cost and the sale of Conleths Park will exceed the cost of the stadium with the balance being pumped into an udergae development programme. One member of the stadium committee is Michael Reilly, a director of Pierce Construction, the plans where thorough and well thought out.
#newbridgeornowhere

Hardy

#4
How much will the government be contributing? Or do amateur, community sports organisations not qualify? Do you have to be a tax-defaulting, economic basket-case  commercial entertainment business before the government will undertake to fund your infrastructural requirements and provide you with almost free premises. So that you can allocate your income to paying your players?

Wait, no. You can also be a well-heeled, blue-chip-property-owning commercial entertainment business and as long as you also have players to pay you can get your capital infrastructure substantially funded by the taxpayer and designated as the 'national' stadium - provided you make sure the national games are not played there. Can't be having national games at the national stadium.

[Edit]
Oops - timing. I had this posted before I saw that the KCC donated the land. Arra feckit. The point stands anyway.

Bord na Mona man

Quote from: Hardy on November 29, 2006, 10:48:28 AM
[Edit]
Oops - timing. I had this posted before I saw that the KCC donated the land. Arra feckit. The point stands anyway.
So long as Kildare County, with an average home gate of 285 don't lever a share of the ground!  ;D

Timothy Leary

Sad to see the end of St.Conleths. Played a few underage games there and lost a county u12 final in about '77. The memories of the 'Bridge and Carbury victories there in the mid 80's, going back further Monasterevin and Raheens and the perennial Sarsfields, Towers, Moorefield and Clane. Memories oF Paddy Mangan, Tommy Carew, Pa Connolly, Joe Giblin, Pat Dunny and more recently Glen Ryan, Paddy O'Donoghue and Dermot Early.  My father brought me to see Vincents of Dublin beat Raheens in the Leinster final about '76, and getting the autograph off Brian Mullins and rushing home to show the Ma. Jack O'Shea, Steven Connevy, John Courtney, Dermot Earley Snr also won  county medals playing in St Conleths. The jacks were woeful, but when your a young lad holding your fathers hand, your more interested in the woman selling the sweets from the stall.

Thanks for the memories.

lynchbhoy

I played in and lost three intermediate county finals 86,88 and 90 I think they were
Celbridge, Suncroft and Allenwood.

memory of the tiny dressing rooms were before one of the finals, one of the mentors came around and insisted we all rubbed deep heat on our legs.
I went to the jacks immediately afterwards and then spent 10 mins washing nether regions to try and quell the burning sensation.

It was a great pitch to play on though.

Always seemed to get a big support for club games.
Clane were brilliant to watch in the early 90's.

Best performance I ever saw there though was the late great Bobby Miller of Laois and then Athy give a footballing show of centre half forward play in the final v St. Laurences ( I think it was) in the late 80's/early 90's
..........

Hardy

I'd say it was Pa Connolly in one dressingroom and the rest of the lads in the other.

Timothy Leary

Lynchboy, did you play for thr Clogs?

Blue Boy

What exactly happened at the county board meeting last night?

AZOffaly

Sad to see the end of Newbridge. Played a few times there, always found the pitch a bit boggy to be honest, but have some great memories of Ferbane's epic Leinster Club campaigns of the late 1980's when nearly every game seemed to be in St. Conleth's park. It was the scene of the famous Leinster Club Final victory over Portlaoise in 1986 as well, not to mention my last trip there, the Qualifier success over Kildare a couple of years ago.

Best of luck with the new stadium. I hope the facilities include a mechanism for counting substitutions as well!! :)

Gnevin

seems like a smart move , 25,000 capacity is grand for Kildare glad to see that haven't caught the 40,000 + bug that many county boards have
Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling.

lynchbhoy

Quote from: Timothy Leary on November 29, 2006, 11:54:27 AM
Lynchboy, did you play for thr Clogs?

wasnt many can say they did
Have to admit I was one!
..........

Timothy Leary